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WILD MUSIC

To introduce the exhibition, the title wall features a selection of quotations from project advisors such as: “Musicality is universal, and innate. But it’s not just the universality that’s significant—it’s the remarkable diversity of musical expression.”
“Whales and humans have been separated for millions of years, yet there’s a similar appeal to their songs. Do we have a common ancestor who sang?”

Ambient Sound

The exhibition features a three-part musical composition by composer and sound artist Philip Blackburn. This provides an "acoustic backbone" to what may otherwise might be perceived as disparate sounds emanating from individual exhibit components.

Edge of the Forest

XYLOPHONE

Visitors walk into a semi-enclosed area to play a wall-mounted xylophone. To the right of the xylophone is a painted deep-relief sculpture of a Palm cockatoo drumming on a tree with a stick held in its claws.

PICTURES OF SOUND

Visitors place tactile sonogram cards of various animals on a player and follow the picture as the animal vocalizes. To one side, an explanation of how to read a spectrogram provides information about terms such as frequency and pitch. The spectrogram shows how the frequency of the song changes over time and makes it possible for the visitor to experience sound through touch, sight, and hearing.

BIRDS IN MUSIC

Visitors see scores and photographs that highlight ways in which bird song has inspired and been emulated by humans in their music. With headphones, visitors listen to excerpts of music that is associated with bird song (Mozart’s starling, Messiaen, Chinese music, F. Schuyler Mathews’ transcriptions, contemporary American composer Beth Custer.)

THRUSH SONGS

Visitors listen to the songs of four thrush species, slow them down to half speed and use a 3-D spectrogram to observe the distinguishing features of each. The visitor may accept a challenge to see if s/he has learned to identify these four by their songs.

BIRD SONG

Nationally-recognized expert Donald Kroodsma leads a seven-part video and auditory exploration of forest birds and the characteristics and purposes of different kinds of bird song.

PARABOLIC MICROPHONE

Visitors use a microphone with a parabolic reflector to pick out in a soundscape faint sound recordings of a variety of birds, squirrels, toads and even a forest stream. A tactile map of the scene in front of them helps locate and identify specific sounds. A nearby kiosk introduces visitors to what an ornithologist has to say about bird song, to current research into song pattern and function, and to ways of listening to learn more about what birds are saying.

MUSIC AND NATURE

Visitors walk inside a hollow tree trunk and listen to examples of human music drawn from and influenced by a soundscape. Examples include music selections from the Bayaka in the Central African Republic, the Kaluli of Papua New Guinea, and George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

BIRD WHISTLES

Visitors see a collection of five bird whistles from Brazil and then hear sound samples of the whistle and the bird that each whistle mimics. They also listen to music from "Carnival" in Brazil in which whistles like these have been incorporated into music.

INSPIRED BY ANIMALS

Visitors look at and listen to sounds from a collection of instruments that have been made to look like nature. These include ocarinas, an Ojibway courting flute, and Peruvian maracas.

MINIATURE MUSICIANS

Visitors see a South American guiro and also a photomicrograph of a spider that makes rasping calls with its own "guiro" apparatus. Beneath the case is a guiro for visitors to play for themselves and a sample of South American wedding music in which the guiro keeps the rhythm.

TALKING DRUM

For centuries, people in western Africa have used drums to communicate over long distances. Talking drums, or dondos, are variable pitch drums that can mimic the pitch and inflection of human speech. Visitors can see a drum and listen to talking drum music from Ghana.

FLUTES OF THE WORLD

This vitrine contains a collection of flutes – a replica of a 53,000 year old cave bear bone flute, a Japanese Shakuhachi, Peruvian panpipes, an Eastern European shepherd’s pipe, an Indonesian bamboo flute, and even a tin whistle. Visitors examine the flutes and push buttons to hear the instruments played.

Bioacoustics Laboratory

ELECTRONIC VOICE

Visitors use an electrolarynx to speak without using their vocal cords. They can also feed sound from the electrolarynx into four transparent, cast plastic models of a human throat and mouth pronouncing vowel sounds – OH, EE, AH, and EH. The sounds they make appear as waveforms on an oscilloscope and as a real-time spectrogram.

FLUTES AND THROATS

Visitors explore resonances of tubes that resemble a recorder. They can experiment with different tube lengths, the introduction of holes in the tube, and the effect of air flow on the tube's resonances.

HUMAN VOICE

Visitors explore how humans produce sounds by operating an interactive larynx model, pulling the vocal folds into an air stream until they make a lower – and then a higher – sound. A video monitor shows endoscopic and animated views of the vocal apparatus in action.

BIRD VOICE

Visitors explore how birds make sound by operating a syrinx model to show how parts of the birds’ bronchial tubes vibrate to make sounds. A video monitor shows endoscopic and animated views of the vocal apparatus in action.

TOUCHABLE SOUND

Visitors use a set of tactile, vibrating metal reeds to investigate the richness of the sound mix of musical instrument tones, animal sounds, and their own voice.

DIDGERIDOO

Visitors examine a didgeridoo, an Australian instrument made from a hollowed out eucalyptus log, and hear a sound sample of this ancient instrument.

The Town

MUSIC AND MEMORY

Visitors sit down at a video recording station to record their memories of music. They are given the choice to listen to a familiar song and then describe the memory it evokes, to talk about a song that has strong personal memory, or talk about the strongest experience they’ve had with music. Visitors may choose to leave their videos to be seen by other visitors and to participate in a research study carried out by the Music Research Institute at the University of North Carolina.

THE MUSIC OF DAILY LIFE

Visitors sit down at a bench to listen in to a variety of city soundscapes recorded by long-time collector Tony Schwartz. These include the sounds of markets, street cars, buskers, street vendors, and outdoor cafes.

MUSIC AT WORK

The rhythms of work give rise to song. Visitors listen to songs inspired by physical activities such as hauling nets, moving logs, and pounding grain that require a number of people to move in unison.

Improvised lyrics relieve monotony and allow for self-expression. For slaves, prisoners and other forced labor, making music restores their dignity. Songs may contain “code” language, letting workers communicate without the bosses catching on.

BORN MUSICAL

Visitors engage in a computer-facilitated experiment in which they learn that we’re all born with music-listening skills. The interactive challenges visitors to listen to three different pairs of melodies, and three different pairs of rhythmic examples, to see if they can detect changes between the original and the subsequent recordings. Babies, born musical, do very well at this task.

Ocean Deeps

UNDERWATER MICROPHONE

Visitors can raise and lower a hydrophone into a large tank filled with water and listen through headphones as they activate mechanisms such as a bubbler, trolling motor, and a ratchet to explore how sound is transmitted under water.

SEA OF SOUNDS

Visitors listen to the surprisingly diverse sounds of animals that live in the sea as well as the sounds of underwater earthquakes and cracking ice.

MUSIC OF THE DEEP

Visitors follow a long tactile sonogram as they listen to the song of a humpback whale.

WHALE SONG STRUCTURE

Visitors use sonograms and sound recordings to explore the songs of humpback whales, learning that these animals compose their songs out of units grouped into repeating phrases and themes.

VARIETY IN WHALE SONGS

Visitors press buttons near bas-relief sculptures to hear a whale's cry or song, learn about the whale's life cycle, food source, and habitat, and compare one with another.

WATERY MUSIC

Visitors listen to examples of human music drawn from and influenced by water soundscapes, including pieces by Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer, Chinese composer Gao Hong, and Tuvan throat singer Anatoli Kuular.

SHELL TRUMPETS

These touchable shells (and sound sample) come from the ocean and have been used by cultures that live near the ocean for trumpeting communications.

Power of Music

WHAT IS MUSIC?

What is Music? consists of two listening stations and a collage of images and photos. The first listening station poses the question "What is music, anyway?” and contains excerpts of audio interviews with environmental sound artist Philip Blackburn, biologist Steve Nowicki, Yup'ik artist Chuna MacIntyre, and ethnomusicologist Elizabeth Tolbert.

THE POWER OF SOUND AND MUSIC THEATER

Visitors enter a partially enclosed, surround-sound music theater to watch a seven-minute sound and video loop. The first section, Me, shows how animals use sound and music to advertise their presence; Me and You gives examples of call and response; Us shows how animals use sound and music to form and nurture social groups.

Programs

DEMONSTRATION CART

A cart provides a work surface for demonstrations and activities, a place for visitors to gather around for conversations, and storage for props and materials.